Nokia Developer News

Ed note: Our friend Richard Bloor shares his impression of the Why you need to work with Nokia session at Nokia Developer Summit:

The session was presented by Crawford Del Prete, Executive Vice President, WW Products and Chief Research Officer, IDC. Hailing from the US, Del Prete has spent 23 years looking at what customers want from their IT platforms. His Nokia Developer Summit presentation provided an interesting perspective on the reasons developers should be working with Nokia.

The key threads of the presentation were:

• Nokia is in an excellent position to benefit from growth in emerging markets and these are the markets where the new subscribers will come from. This is because Nokia has its highest penetration rate in many of these markets.
• Nokia’s broadly-based portfolio: offering a balance of devices across all price points is a key to realizing this growth - enabling the user to grow entirely within the Nokia “family”. A particularly important characteristic, as featurephones are increasingly become the on ramp to smartphone ownership. 
• Differentiation is likely to shift from price and features to experience, what Del Prete described as a focus on jobs. He highlighted Nokia’s Life Tools that provide, for example, the ability for rural farmers in India to take a course in English. So the competition was not another phone but rather a lesson. This focus on job, the things user wants to do, is the lock in that will win in the next generation of mobile phone users according to Del Prete.
• For developer’s, the key to success will be in maintaining an equally diverse range of applications; developers ignore featurephones at their peril. While featurephone apps may need to be low cost they are also where the volume is. But by targeting featurephones developer have the opportunity to keep users as they gravitate to smartphone devices.
• A key to maximizing revenue across all segments will be analytics, and the recent purchase of Motally by Nokia should see developers getting the key metrics they need.

If there was a simple conclusion from Del Prete’s presentation it was that Nokia offers developers a path too growth, and this path is secure because Nokia’s path to growth will increasingly rely on developers providing the job differentiation to devices. Perhaps the ultimate win-win.

Ed note: in a great example of "dog fooding", Richard wrote and sent his note using Mobile Documents, available in Ovi Store.

Sorry for going initial crazy, but sometimes I can't help myself. Developers at Nokia Developer Summit are getting some hands-on time with two SDKs that have been released in recent weeks:

With the Nokia Qt SDK, developers can distribute apps to approximately 175 million Nokia Symbian smartphones - the largest smartphone user base in the world. Qt is pre-installed on all new Nokia smartphones and downloadable to millions of smartphones people are already using. Using the Nokia Qt SDK to build their apps, developers will discover a complete, easy-to-use tool that brings a shortened workflow, simplified development and intuitive UI libraries resulting in 70 percent fewer lines of code, cutting creation time dramatically.

The Nokia Qt SDK has been designed to provide all the resources you need to create great apps easily. This tool is delivered in simple to install packages for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Apple Mac computers. The SDK incorporates the latest version of the Qt framework and Qt Creator. In addition to the standard Qt tools, the SDK includes a lightweight simulator and other tools to ensure mobile apps can be compiled, tested, and deployed quickly and easily. 

The Qt SDK now includes the final version of the Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian. Smart Installer eliminates the need for Symbian apps to bundle the Qt framework in distributed SIS files. When an app packaged with Smart Installer is installed by the user it checks for the presence of the Qt packages, downloading and installing any needed by the app that are not on the device.

Check out Chief Engineer Ville's intro to the SDK for Symbian Developers:

 

Developers are also getting a look at the SDK for Series 40 Touch and Type - the industry's first touch SDK for mobile phones.

Last year, Nokia shipped 364 million mobile phones - around a million devices every day. The new Series 40 Touch and Type SDK brings the benefit of a touch interface to a new global audience. The SDK will make development for these devices extremely simple and allows easy porting of existing apps created for current Nokia smartphones.

First free Symbian Signing. Now Free Java Verified. Ovi Store continues to lower the barriers to entry for developers. The press release notes "Nokia has also removed the time consuming and costly step of app signing. With one click, Java and Symbian apps signing is complete." That was welcome news to those in the audience this morning.

Nokia launched today a Web Run Time template for content providers. The template makes it easy to create a Web TV app which is downloadable from Ovi. Web TV template is fast  and  cost  effective way to mobilize on-demand TV services.  The template allows to customize your  Web TV app according to your own branding and to leverage your existing Web content  from the backend. The Nokia Web TV template enables building an app within a few working days that is downloadable from Ovi Store.

 

 

It's going to be a long, interesting night for 13 teams competing in the 2010 Calling All Innovators Hackathon  in London. These elite developers from around the world will have approximately 36 hours to create a working application for use on the new Nokia N8, based solely on an idea submitted by consumers during this year’s Make My App contest. All teams will be using Qt to develop their final apps.

What can they win?

The developers have a lot riding on their skills. The top three apps developed during the Hackathon will be presented live, on stage, during the closing keynote of the Nokia Developer Summit. The winners of the Hackathon contest will receive over 100,000 (Euros) in cash and prizes:

• Grand Prize Winner: 50,000 Euros and winners’ bragging rights
• 1st Runner-Up: 20,000 Euros
• 2nd Runner-Up: 10,000 Euros
• 3rd Runner-Up: 3,000 Euros
• All others will receive devices and 1,000 Euro for working apps

All working applications will receive application marketing support from Forum Nokia and the Nokia Mobile Computing Marketing Teams. This includes:

• Inclusion in Top 50 campaigns
• Ovi Daily App review
• XML feed on Nokia.com and .Mobi
• mention in e-mail messages to consumers
• publicity in Nokia’s Facebook page as well as Nokia Conversations (the official Nokia blog)
• guidance for use in local Nokia N8 marketing campaigns.

Best luck to the following competitors (though it's their skill what will win the day.)

 

• The Auto HDR Photography app will be created by Fenlong Zheng from Japan/U.S.-based Morpho, Inc., whose Morpho QuickPanorama app is a finalist in the Entertainment category of Calling All Innovators this year.
• Another photography-related app, Emergency Geotagged Photo, has been handed to Amr O. Ali and Ahmad Al Sayed from Egypt's Enpronomics Solutions.
• Developers from two different companies will be working to create a Mobile Photoshop application: Tero Paananen and Tuomo Hirvonen, senior software specialists with Finland's Digia (Note: Digia competed in the Hackathon last year, too.); and Kristopher Kantor, who is the chief developer of an application called Ansel-A, which is a finalist in the productivity category of this year's Calling All Innovators contest.
• The idea for the Face Recognition Device Lock application is being covered by developers from two different companies, too: Jackson Feijo and Allan Bezerra, developers from Brazil's INdT; and Pau Corbella, software developer from Spain's Visual Engineering Technology S.L.
• An idea for an app called BioSeen will help to document wildlife sightings. This app will be developed by Zsolt Langviser and Emma Tresanszki, developers from Romania's Arobs Transilvania Software company.
• The Instant Voice Translation app will be developed by Anssi Eteläniemi and Saija Saarenpää, software developers from Finland's Tieto, Oy, who also happen to be married to one another.
• The I Friend app, an electronic companion who is always close at hand, will be developed by Salvador Madrazo Gutierrez and Jorge Alberto Perez Ortega, mobile developers from Mexico's Iron Bit.
• The Storymaker application for collaborative story telling will be developed by Peter Vingelmann and Morten V. Pedersen, both PhD Fellows from Aalborg University in Denmark. 
• A team from Ukraine-based Quick Office will work on the Document Creator Manager application, which will use the macro mode of the camera on the Nokia N8 to take optimized photos of a document and convert it into a Word/PDF document that can be saved on the phone. The team includes: Dmytro Sumtsov, Kostiantyn Solonetskyi and Mykola Vorobyov.
• The Toddler Tutor educational app will be under the watchful eye of Prashant Singh, from India's Spice Labs, which already has several educational apps in Ovi Store, as well as the Twitter app called Trill .
• Also from India, Vaideeswaran Sethuraman and Sreelakshmi Vaideeswaran, who are the founders of Divum Corporate Services, will produce a First Aid application for use during an emergency.
• Arch Design Mobile, described as "a multipoint touch, parametric, architectural 2D sketching application" will be worked on by Srikanth Krishamohan from India's InfiMatra Technologies Pvt. Ltd.  This company also created the app PlanEasy2D, which is another finalist in the Productivity category of this year's Calling All Innovators contest.
• The last idea is for a Sound Editor app, and it is being developed by Marcin Baranowski and Aciej Debinski, software engineers with the company Teleca. (Teleca competed in the Hackathon last year, too.)
• It should also be noted that a representative from Oxfam in the U.K. will produce an application focused on Green News, but he will be using the Ovi app wizard to produce his app during the Hackathon.

Go hackers!

 

At the Nokia World conference in London today, Nokia launched an enhanced Ovi Store user interface (UI) for Nokia Symbian^3 smartphones including the Nokia N8 and new Nokia E7. The enhancements include multitasking, improved navigation, and an updated look and feel.

Multitasking means users can download and install more than one app at a time. The navigation enhancements feature new icons on the top of the device screen for the store’s Home, Categories, Search, and Account. Also, the Store Menu and Back buttons are now visible at all times. On the look-and-feel front, the new UI sports a richer design and eye-soothing grey color.

It is anticipated that other Nokia smartphones will receive the Ovi Store UI enhancements soon. More information will be added as soon as it becomes available.

Explore the new Ovi Store UI enhancements now.

At the Nokia World conference in London, Nokia today announced three Symbian^3 smartphones that deliver significant enhancements in speed and ease-of-use. The new devices are also tightly integrated with enhanced Ovi services and apps, reinforcing Nokia's vision of a mobile industry that is increasingly being defined by socially connected, location-based devices and experiences. 

Nokia E7: The ultimate business smartphone, it features Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync for direct, real-time and secure access to corporate e-mail inboxes and other personal applications. The Nokia E7 is equipped with a 4-inch touchscreen display featuring Nokia ClearBlack technology for improved outdoor visibility; full keyboard; business-grade security; A-GPS; 8-megapixel camera; 16 gigabytes of mass storage; and more. The Nokia E7 will retail for 495 euros. View the complete technical specifications.

 

Nokia C7: Beautifully crafted, this is a sleek social-networking smartphone. Users can get live updates from social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, and keep track of new e-mail from Yahoo! or Gmail accounts directly on the homescreen. The Nokia C7 features a 3.5-inch AMOLED display and a stunning combination of stainless steel, glass and soft edges. It will retail for 335 euros. View the complete technical specifications.

Nokia C6: This small and stylish smartphone sports a 3.2-inch AMOLED display with full touch capabilities and Nokia ClearBlack technology for improved outdoor visibility. Users will enjoy social networking and mobile entertainment in a stainless steel and glass design, and they can stay connected to e-mail, access millions of tracks through Ovi Music, and download apps and games from the Ovi Store. The Nokia C6 will retail for 260 euros. View the complete technical specifications.

Through Ovi Store, Nokia reaches more smartphone users than any other company on the planet. The following developers and publishers, listed below in alphabetical order, have had their apps and content downloaded from Ovi Store at least 1 million times:

1 Million to 4.99 Million Downloads:
•    3D Arts (Jyväskylä, Finland)
•    A3 Media Network (Colorado, United States)
•    ADA Sport (Los Angeles, United States)
•    Arch Mobile Solutions Private (Chandigarh, India)
•    Breakdesign (Singapore)
•    CELL Co. (Okinawa, Japan)
•    cellspecial (Tokyo, Japan)
•    Connect2Media (Manchester, U.K.)
•    Dada.net SPA (New York, United States)
•    Dalrus Private (Singapore)
•    eBuddy (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
•    EyeMags (Chalfont St Giles, U.K.)
•    F-Secure (Helsinki, Finland)
•    Finndesign (Helsinki, Finland)
•    FrienzPlay / Jmap Inc. (Taiwan)
•    fringland (Tel Aviv, Israel)
•    Gameloft (Paris, France)
•    Google Ireland (Dublin, Ireland)
•    Guided Ways Technologies (Slough, U.K.)
•    Hosee Studio (Taipei, Taiwan)
•    Idevio (Göteborg, Sweden)
•    I-play (London, UK)
•    JK Media (Hong Kong, China)
•    M2Mobi (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
•    Mobstar Media (East Sussex, U.K.)
•    Moderati (Skyrockit) (California, United States)
•    Mopius (Sankt Pölten, Austria )
•    Nimbuzz (Capelle aan den Ijssel, Netherlands)
•    Numo (Oslo, Norway)
•    Opera Software (Oslo, Norway)
•    PepsiCo (New York, United States)
•    Pizero Design by Michele Cerreta (Lucca, Italy)
•    Polarbit (Stockholm, Sweden)
•    PopCap Games (Washington, United States)
•    Qik (California, United States)
•    R/GA (New York, United States)
•    Ravensoft (Manchester, U.K.)
•    Shazam Entertainment (London, U.K.)
•    Skype Software (Luxembourg)
•    Smartphoneware (Odessa, Ukraine)
•    Snaptu (London, U.K.)
•    Spice Labs (Delhi, India)
•    Syntonetic Media Solutions (Frederiksberg, Denmark)
•    Tequila Mobile (Wroclaw, Poland)
•    ThinkChange (Shanghai, China)
•    UAB TeleSoftas (Kaunas, Lithuania)
•    White Complex (Hong Kong, China)
•    XIM (California, United States)
•    Zensis (Hong Kong, China)

5 Million to 9.99 Million Downloads:
•    Digital Chocolate (California, United States)
•    Fox Mobile Distribution (Berlin, Germany)
•    HeroCraft (Kaliningrad, Russia)
•    Indiagames (Mumbai, India)
•    innerActive (Tel Aviv, Israel)
•    Lunaforte / Lunagames International B.V. (Hoorn, Netherlands)
•    MMMOOO/ Shanghai Jibiao Info Tech Co. Ltd. (Shanghai, China)
•    Pico Brothers (Vaasa, Finland)

10 Million or more Downloads:
•    Offscreen Technologies (Helsinki, Finland)

It is safe to say this list will continue to grow. Here are a few Ovi Store publishers that are fast approaching 1 million downloads:
•    Birkett Enterprise
•    Infinite Dreams
•    MobiFun Soft
•    Mobilesoft Technology (HK)
•    Spb Software
•    ZingMagic

Congratulations to the million-plus developers. Join us by developing for Ovi Store, and you could become one of the next 50 developers to find success with Nokia. 

To get started, register with publish to Ovi now.